Judo fucking troll master Miller huffs and puffs: "Jim, I am SHOCKED at your statement, that only people from England and Australia know English..." And he does the reverso troll spinabout on him. I love it.
Having not read much more about this new policy than the headline, I think it's dumb.
I do think Stephen Miller did a very nice job of rebutting Acosta on this, and shoving it up Acosta and thereby CNN's ass.
That said, on Twitter, Miller (who is Jewish) use of "cosmopolitan" is now being called a dalliance with anti-semitism, apparently post WWII (or maybe even earlier), "rootless cosmopolitan" was a dog whistle for Jews.
en.wikipedia org/wiki/Rootless_cosmopolitan
Rootless cosmopolitan (Russian: безродный космополит, bezrodnyi kosmopolit) was a pejorative label used during the anti-Semitic campaign in the Soviet Union after World War II.[1] Cosmopolitans were intellectuals who were accused of expressing pro-Western feelings and lack of patriotism. The term "rootless cosmopolitan" referred to Jewish intellectuals. It was popularized during the campaign in a Pravda article condemning a group of theatrical critics
Regardless, I don't understand the basic complaint. So "alt-right" trumpetariat is actually anti-semitic by claiming that CNN's Acosta is a Jew lover by claiming that only the UK and Australia speak English?
That argument seems wildly incoherent at anything other than the surface, "gotcha" level of saying Miller laid out an anti-semitic dog whistle.
Here's esquire explaining (?)
esquire com/news-politics/politics/news/a56782/stephen-miller-jim-acosta/
The Historical Significance of 'Cosmopolitan' as an Insult
Stephen Miller hurled it at CNN's Jim Acosta today inside the White House.
BY CHARLES P. PIERCE
AUG 2, 2017
Anyone who attended one of the president*'s campaign rallies learned two things: 1) that it is possible to get sick of hearing "You Can't Always Get What You Want," and 2) that of all the warm-up acts, Stephen Miller was the most thuggish. He was pure Trumpian Id, especially on the subject of minorities.
On Wednesday, for reasons known only to whatever critters inhabit the ravines and gullies of the presidential cortex, they trotted Miller out to talk about the administration's new proposal to limit legal immigration.
The way Miller leaned into the word "cosmopolitan" while answering Acosta has a long and ignoble history in 20th century authoritarianism, especially the anti-Semitic variety. During World War II, for example, the Soviet government under Stalin used to rail regularly at "rootless cosmopolitanism," especially in the arts. The Nazis were fond of tossing it around, too. There is no context in which Miller's use of the word against Acosta makes sense except as a historical signaling device.
It still makes no sense as an argument to me to claim Miller was being anti-semitic.
That said, Pierce does have this to say about the Miller mistake re the Statue of Liberty Poem.
Also, Miller doesn't know dick about Emma Lazarus and the Statue of Liberty. She wrote the poem, "The New Colossus," from which the famous lines on the Statue of Liberty's pedestal were taken in 1883 for the purpose of raising funds for … wait for it … the Statue of Liberty.